This paper proposes an approach, called pwnPr3d, for quantitatively estimating information security risk in ICT systems. Unlike many other risk analysis approaches that rely heavily on manual work and security expertise, this approach comes with built-in security risk analysis capabilities. pwnPr3d combines a network architecture modeling language and a probabilistic inference engine to automatically generate an attack graph, making it possible to identify threats along with the likelihood of these threats exploiting a vulnerability. After defining the value of information assets to their organization with regards to confidentiality, integrity and availability breaches, pwnPr3d allows users to automatically quantify information security risk over time, depending on the possible progression of the attacker. As a result, pwnPr3d provides stakeholders in organizations with a holistic approach that both allows high-level overview and technical details.
There are many privacy concerns within Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). On the one hand, end-users are concerned about their privacy risk exposure, while on the other hand, ITS providers need to claim privacy awareness and document compliance with regulations or otherwise face devastating fines. One approach to address these concerns is to use methods specifically developed to assess privacy risks of ITS. The literature lacks such methods, and the complex and dynamic nature of ITS introduces challenges that need to be properly addressed when assessing privacy risks. The main challenges are related to real-time assessment of privacy risks to (1) inform end-users about exposed privacy risks, and (2) help providers asses privacy-compliance risks. We propose a method to privacy risk assessment addressing these challenges. The method is exemplified on an ITS-example. The initial results indicate feasibility of the method and propose directions for future work.
Resource constraints during development require an elaborated decision-making process supported by risk information. The goal of this paper is to investigate the state-of-practice of risk management during development in software houses. For this purpose, we conducted a survey in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland where 57 software houses participated. The survey results are triangulated by results from literature and interviews with a subset of the survey participants. Results from the survey show that less than a third of the companies performs risk management during development. Main reasons for not performing risk management are lack of resources, need and knowledge. An important application area of risk assessment results is the prioritization of test cases. Finally, technical product risks as well as project risks are commonly applied risk assessment criteria.
Assessing security-related risks in software or systems engineering is a challenging task: often, a heterogeneous set of distributed stakeholders creates a complex system of (software) components which are highly connected to each other, consumer electronics, or Internet-based services. Changes during development are frequent and must be evaluated and handled efficiently. Consequently, risk assessment itself becomes a complex task and its results must be comprehensible by all actors in the distributed environment. Especially, systematic and repeatable identification of security goals based on a model of the system under development (SUD) is not well-supported in established methods. Thus, we demonstrate how the systematic identification, merging, and validation of security goals based on a model of the SUD in a concrete implementation of our method Modular Risk Assessment (MoRA) supports security engineers to handle this challenge.
Risk treatment is an important part of risk management, and deals with the question which security controls shall be implemented in order to mitigate risk. Indeed, most notably when the mitigated risk is low, the costs engendered by the implementation of a security control may exceed its benefits. The question becomes particularly interesting if there are several countermeasures to choose from.
